


Survivor Guilt

by death_of_romeo



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mental Institution, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, M/M, also a sort of, other relationships/characters will be tagged as they appear, the fic will explain further
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-11
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-03-07 01:09:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3155183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/death_of_romeo/pseuds/death_of_romeo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the Blood Gulch Rehabilitation and Mental Health Center, two things were certain; death, and treatment given by the worst group of "health professionals" ever. Of all time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Guilty Ones

**Author's Note:**

> ((Hey, hi, hello. First RvB fic, first wartime-esque fic. Enjoy! x))

In the Blood Gulch Rehabilitation and Mental Health Center, two things were certain; death, and treatment given by the worst group of "health professionals" ever. Of all time.

Well, that was a lie; they weren't the _worst_. In fact, they were the only people that Donut had ever met that actually called themselves "mental health professionals", so he guessed that they were the best by default. 

That still didn't mean that they were perfect, though. 

Some of them were mean. They would lock the rooms at night, and nobody would explain why. They would silently patrol the halls in the morning time and, again, nobody would explain why. Donut figured it was just to ensure that everybody was safe and alright. This _was_ a wartime, after all. It was dangerous all around. Some of his friends believed differently. They said that these guards wanted nothing more than to kill all of them, but Donut didn't want to believe in any of that. He liked these people, these guards that served as nurses, doctors. Anything and everything, really. They were pretty decent people. All things considered, at least. 

Every hall had one or two guards set to patrol it. The ones on the left side of the facility were a red-haired woman by the name of Carolina and a man who looked to have had the same sort of battlefield accident by the name of York. Donut never really talked to these two, but they seemed pleasant...or at least York did. Carolina, not so much.

The halls were patrolled every night and every morning. During the day, the guards tended to mingle about with the patients and inmates. Well, some of them did. Mostly, it was just the guards that Donut never saw anytime else. People like North, and South, and Wyoming. They guarded other parts of the facility, as Donut slowly found it. 

Sometimes, he wishes that he could trade out Carolina and York for...well, any of them, really. 

The facility, as he learned, was divided off in to two different sections: the left side was for people like Donut, people with things wrong in their head. Now, he never figured that he had anything wrong with his brain, but this was wartime. _Everyone_ had something wrong with their head, as far as these people were concerned. Some people in this place, they seemed pretty normal. Tucker, Grif, Simmons, they all seemed a-okay as far as Donut was concerned. Then again, what did he know? He was supposedly broken. He wasn't supposed to know anything about any of that, now was he?

He sometimes wondered if they just threw people in here that everyone knew couldn't fight well enough. He knew that he wasn't the best fighter out there, but he also didn't think that he was the worst. Was he? 

He doesn't like to think about that. 

The right side of the facility was for the criminals. It was for the people who went out on a rampage and killed some innocent bystanders, or their family, or maybe they killed someone on their own team. There were a few of those.

On the left side, the rooms were divided again. The rooms were outfitted in either red or blue. The beds, the walls. They were either some shade of red or some shade of blue. As far as anyone knew, being assigned one of these rooms didn't mean anything in particular. They were just rooms. Donut compared it to when he would go to the pediatrician as a kid...except without all the needles, or nice nurses, or full body physicals.

He wished there were more full body physicals.

The right side of the facility was divided into two parts, as well, except these weren't given any reds or blues as backdrops. This side was plain, boring. He felt bad for all of those people that were stuck in those rooms all day long, but he supposed they deserved it; they _had_ committed a crime, after all. One side was for all the criminals to stay in. As far as Donut knew, these rooms were just like the ones on the other side of the facility...but what did he know? He'd never been in any of these rooms. Thank God for that, really.

The other part of the criminals' side was the hospital sort of place. He had never heard it referred to as any specific room name or anything like that, though. He had only heard people tell others to "Go to Doc" or "Take them to Doc". He heard someone say that once before, back when he was first admitted to this place. It was after something happened on the battlefield, except not really; there was no fighting, but there _were_ grenades. One had gotten too close, exploded nearby. He still can't hear very well out of one ear, but hey. He wasn't complaining. At least he was still alive, right?

All in all, this place wasn't all that bad. He was fed, he had a place to sleep at night. He had friends, lots of friends. He had feelings for someone, too, but he didn't like to make that part all that obvious (even if, unbeknownst to him, the whole goddamn facility knew about it). 

All things considered, he was alright with staying in this place. 

After all, what could possibly go wrong? 


	2. Everything's Okay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simmons didn't know what he was talking about; he wasn't an alcoholic. He just liked a few drinks now and then. What was so wrong with that? 
> 
> (Yes, okay maybe "now and then" meant "every fucking day of his life", but whatever; he liked to drink. Nothing was wrong with that.)

 

"For the last time, Grif, you were put in here because you're an alcoholic." a voice said, an exasperated sort of sound to his friend's words before he sighed. "Alcoholism is an actual mental disorder."

"Yeah, well then why wasn't I in here before?" he replied, honestly not wanting to deal with this conversation. Again. For the fourteen-billionth fucking time. "I was drinking before the war and I wasn't crazy then." 

" _You're not crazy_ ," his friend responded, obviously even more annoyed by the previous declaration. " _you're an alcoholic._ " 

 

* * *

 

This facility was Hell. Yes, he had said that war was Hell in the past, but _this_ \- nothing compared to this place. The guards here were horrible (did they even _count_ as guards? Grif didn't fucking know), the inmates or patients or whatever they were called, they were all toxic, stupid human beings...

Overall, Grif did not like being confined in this place.

He didn't like being stuck with Simmons every day, all day. He didn't like having to go to some stupid therapy session to talk about some stupid problems that he didn't even fucking _have_.

He didn't like not being able to drink.

 

* * *

 

"No I'm not. Alcoholics are old men that have nothing better to do than to drink until they die on their fucking couch or something," he explained. "and I'm not old...but I wouldn't mind dying on the couch..."

"Grif."

"What?"

Simmons sighed, looking at his friend with that look that Grif knew meant " _Stop it. Please._ ", but he rarely listened to this plea. 

(In this case, "rarely" meant "never".)

"Look, all I'm saying is that if I were to die, I wouldn't mind dying on the couch." he clarified. "I also wouldn't mind dying with a drink in my hand, and don't you dare so that makes me an alcoholic."

" _But it does!_ " his friend interjected.

Sometimes, Grif really wished that this guy would die in a fire or something, but even then, that stupid voice would haunt him. That stupid, high-pitched, defensive little voice that disagreed with everything that he ever said would haunt him, like a ghost or a demon or something like that. 

"It does not!"

 

* * *

 

 

When he was first admitted to this place, it was for accusations of being an alcoholic. Nobody would tell him who ratted him out, but he had a pretty good idea. Not that he would ever bring it up in conversation, though; he was mean, not evil. Simmons might have reported him and gotten him stuck in this place, but (as bad as Grif knew it was to admit it) at least they were stuck here together. 

To be fair, though, not even having Simmons with him made staying in this place bearable. It didn't make the guards any less horrible, didn't make the food any less disgusting. It didn't make these other patients (inmates? prisoners?) any easier to deal with. It didn't make Donut shut up, didn't make Tucker stop flirting with everything that fucking moved. 

It didn't stop Sarge from yelling at them.

First, it was only about somewhat logic stuff. He said that they had gone in his room, moved everything around - they had, but that was not the point here. He said that they were stealing some of his things while he wasn't looking - okay, this was all Grif, but still. 

Then, it all started to go downhill.

See, the old man had been let out, released. He was supposed to be all better then. Grif never believed it, but whatever. At least _someone_ was being "fixed", whatever the hell that meant around here. 

A couple months later, and the guy was back, only now he wasn't in the left side of the facility with the rest of them.

Donut had been the one to spot him. The idiot had been over on the right side of the facility, something about scraping his knees all up and having to go see Doc. Grif knew better than thinking that he was just clumsy, he knew what the kid's intentions were, but that was his own business; Grif would much rather _not_ think about whatever Donut's plans were with the medic. 

When his friend ("friend" being a very loose term here) came back, however, he wasn't just talking about his school yard crush on the medic next door.

"Hey, Sarge is back!" he had declared, in a tone that sounded way too cheerful considering the fact that his words were about someone being readmitted in to a mental health and rehabilitation center. 

That day was spent with the three of them - Grif, Simmons, and their little flamboyant sidekick - sneaking about the facility, trying to figure out what was up with their remaining Red (a joke stemming from the way the mental health rooms were decorated and painted) being put back in to this place. 

They were eventually found and escorted back to their designated side of the facility, but not without the three of them catching a peak at their old friend being thrown in to a room on the right side of the place. 

Right side. The criminal side.

"What the hell did he _do?_ " Grif asked. Numerous times. Nobody had an answer, though. Not Simmons, not Donut, not Tucker. Not even Church had an answer, and this was the defining factor that really caused him to worry just a little more about what his friend (this term being very loosely used here) could have done to end up being locked away on the other side of the facility. 

To be fair, Grif never really had liked Sarge. The old man never liked him, either, though, so it was fine. The feelings were mutual. But despite the mutual hatred that the two shared, they were both still Reds. It was a stupid alliance joke that came from the way the rooms were decorated in this god-forsaken place, but it was still an alliance. A team, and teams protected each other. Seeing that guy locked away in some place without any of the rest of his team...it was strange, and Grif didn't like it, not one bit. 

Now, Grif had always defended the fact that he was not an alcoholic. He just liked a good drink now and again.

That night, he really fucking wanted one.

 

 


	3. Haunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There were Reds and there were Blues. The Reds were friends, and the Blues were friends...or well, as close to friends that the individuals would allow. 
> 
> It wasn't very far.

"Friend" was a very strong word. Church wouldn't consider either of the two men with blue rooms as his friends. He would, however, consider them higher up the food chain of acquaintances than, say, those with red rooms. It was a silly thing to think, he knew, but he also could not help it. Some called it a "soldier's frame of mind", but his time serving in the war was very short-lived. Or at least it was on the battlefield, anyway. Behind the scenes, that was a much different story...but one that would have to wait; only the guards knew of this fact. Only those who worked in and for this facility knew of his time working behind closed doors, in the dark. Too many secrets were kept there, but it was for the best. He did his job, and that was all that mattered.

Some would say that, as time went on, the man lost his mind. This Church was not the one that served his time in the military as a fearless leader, a merciless killer that did what had to be done. This Church was not the one who had the brilliant idea of setting up a place for those who needed help to get that help without leaving and going back home. Nobody would let anybody go home, everyone knew that. This Church was not the same man who built this facility from the ground up, who handpicked every last guard and ensured that they had the best damn employees in the entire fucking war. He would say that these were lies. He would say that their accusations of insanity were false, they had to be, because how the _hell_ could he be insane if he could still aim a gun and blow their fucking brains out?

(He never was the best with live ammunition, but his sheer confidence was always enough to veer most away from questioning it or calling him out on it). 

Nobody would clarify what exactly called for his diagnosis of insanity. All he knew was that one minute, he was at the top, and the next, he was at the very, very bottom. A new owner controlled the facility, a new set of leadership took over, one that Church did not exactly agree with. It was too late by then, though; he was being treated as dirt, as nothing. He was only just another patient, just another inmate. Just another prisoner. The guards didn't pay him a second glance, didn't have casual conversation with him like they used to do. He wondered if it had all just been in his head, if he really _was_ insane. 

Still, to this day, he isn't quite sure.

With his new position as a patient, however, this meant a new set of friends. "Friends" being a very strong word, and a very ill-fitting term for the crew of misfits and mistakes that he was now stuck with dealing with on a regular basis. 

He had been given a room just like all the other patients. His room was outfitted in light blue everything; it was sickening, really, but he supposed he would have to deal with it. At least for now, anyway. At least until he could figure everything out. 

The Blues consisted of three men. Tucker was the simplest to explain, understand, and he was also probably the one that Church liked the most. People heard that he had been admitted for a behavioral addiction. It wouldn't take anyone very long to figure out _what_ exactly the man was obsessed with doing, either, but Church never much liked to think about that. Not if he had the choice to, anyway, because come on, did _anyone_ like thinking of their friend's (still a rather loose term) sex lives? 

The remaining blue was a man by the name of Washington. He used to be a guard in the facility, used to patrol the halls and make sure everything was in its place, exactly how it ought to be. Rumor had it that the man went insane after a while. Too much being around crazy, too much exposure to the left over debris and victims of the war. Too much fighting. Church almost felt bad for the guy; almost, considering the fact that everyone suffered in war. There were no winners in something like this. It wasn't Church's fault that the guy had been too weak to handle the pressure of it all. 

There were other patients in the mental health hall, too. Those were the Reds. As far as he knew, there were three here and one that had been (through a series of events that he only halfway understood) transferred to the prison-type hall. The three that were left over with him seemed a pretty tight-knit group. Church didn't really bother with them; they were the Reds, and he and his group were the Blues. Teams were not meant to intermingle. Teams only got together on a few special occasions. Either something was wrong, there was a fight going on, or there was a new patient in the facility.

Today, it was lucky number three.

 

 

 


	4. Dark Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I got twenty bucks and whatever Simmons has under his bed that this guy's gonna be a Red." 
> 
> "What?!"
> 
> "Oh, fuck no. This guy's a Blue."

Church sighed. There was a new patient in the facility. This new guy looked like he had to be coming to the mental side. He had this sort of goofy smile plastered across this face, the kind that a kid would have at the circus or a candy shop or something like that. His wrist was being held tightly by one of the guards (Texas, as Church remembered all too well), and she was explaining everything about this man with the stupid grin. She explained that he had been stationed elsewhere, but the rest of his team could not deal with his constant babble about tastes and colors and words coming to life. She explained that this man would talk about things that were not there, that he would be afraid of absolutely nothing at all. As she spoke, the man's gaze jumped all around, moving from the guards, to Texas, to the wall, the ceiling, the floor, back to the ceiling, to the corner of the room, to-

" _Oooh, hello!!_ "

_Shit._

The man's gaze had found the usual crew of Reds and Blues, and the only one that was friendly enough to respond at all was Donut, who waved and gave a quiet "hi there!" in return. With this, the new kid tugged at the guard that was still gripping his wrist, a soft whining sound escaping him as he pointed in the direction of Church and all the others. 

"I want to go make friends, please!" he asked the guard (which was a bad idea - Texas was one of the strongest, harshest guards in this entire facility. Everyone knew that.). The woman gave one glance to the new patient, then followed his gaze to the side of the room where the group of friends was sitting and watching.

One look at Church, and she was averting her attention back to the excited man at her side.

"Fine." she replied, and Church knew that tone; she wasn't giving in or letting this guy win, no. She was being mischievous, and mean. 

She was being evil.

"Just play nice." she added, and with that, the grip on the man's hand was released. With the look of sheer fucking _excitement_ that spread across this guy's face, one would think he had just been given a new car or a million dollars. But no. He had just been given full reign to come over and annoy Church, and Tucker, and Washington, and all the others.

Mostly, he had just been given full reign to come over and annoy Church.

"Hello, new friend people!!" the man beamed, waving at the small group of strangers as if he had known them for all of his life. It was a kind gesture, one that brought on a couple of snickers from the receiving end of it all; one of these responses came from Grif, who, unsurprisingly, was only really amused with any of this because now there was yet another person around to annoy Church. The fucker deserved it, to be quite honest. Another of these sarcastic replies came from Tucker, and this one was for the same exact reason; oh man, Church was just going to have a _blast_ with this new guy. 

"Hi there." someone spoke up (since nobody was - plus, he supposed he was the only one aside from maybe Donut that had anything nice to say so far), a small, genuinely amused smile appearing as he continued. "My name is Washington, but you can call me Wash. All my friends do."

"Pfft, who says we're friends?"

"Grif!" another interjected, shoving the man next to him a little to get him to be quiet; as far as Simmons was concerned, now was not the time to say something like that. Later, sure, maybe, but not right now. Not when they were just meeting a new patient that could _potentially_ be a Red. 

With a glance back to Washington as a signal to let the man continue speaking, he did.

"What's your name?" he continued at first, watching the new patient closely as the man's attention went from him, to the ceiling, to some blank space just above everyone's heads. He supposed that perhaps this man had some sort of psychological disorder. Schizophrenia, maybe, considering the fact that this man was acting as though he was seeing things that were not really there. That may not be all that was wrong with this kid, but it could be part of it. Regardless, when he didn't receive a response within a moment or so, he repeated his question. "Um, hello? What's your name?" 

When an answer still was not given, another voice chimed in, one that was far too annoyed and tired of waiting around and getting nothing in return. 

"Hey, paging new guy. We're kind of asking you a question here." 

With this, the man finally looked back down to them, his mind by all appearances coming straight back down to Earth just like that. 

_Oh, fuck. Why.,_ Church thought as soon as he saw this kid suddenly look back to them and start to act normal again. _Why did he have to pay attention to me. Why this._

"Oh, hello!" the new patient responded rather abruptly, as if nothing had even happened and as if he hadn't just zoned out for a minute or two. "My name is Caboose!" he declared before his focus floated straight back up to the same empty air as it had been glued on before. A second or two passed before he added, seemingly aside, "No, I do not want to leave. I like these people. They are my friends!" 

The group of Blues and Reds looked at each other then, silent glances and expressions trying to figure out just what exactly was up with this kid. 

Inevitably, Washington chose to take charge of finding the answer to these questions.

"Hey...um, Caboose," he spoke up, his words cautious, careful. Gentle. He supposed that it was like dealing with a child. A grown...schizophrenic...child. "What are you seeing right now?" 

The look of mere shock and confusion that crossed Caboose's face at this question was enough to intrigue every last one of them, but Washington tried his very best to seem oblivious and not phased at all by this expression...even if it did creep him out just a fair bit. 

" _Ooh, you see him, too?!_ " 


End file.
